True Customer Service Websites:

User Experience (UX) Testing

and Plain Language

Maximus Plain Talk Conference

March 13, 2015

Katherine Spivey and Jonathan Rubin

Overview

1. What PL and UX are + why you should care

2. What we do and how

3. Top problems we see

4. What you can do

5. Resources

6. Contact us

1.What PL and UX

are and why you

should care

You are not your users

YouTarget

Audience

What’s the Return on Investment?

● Increased customer satisfaction

● Increased compliance

● Increased gov transparency

● Reduced training time

● Reduced help desk calls / emails

● High task completion rate

● Reduced error rate

Successful + Happy Customers!

Results of UX + PL

Complete tasks 50% faster

70% bump in user satisfaction

Saves $2 million a year by

prioritizing top tasks

Decreased help calls by 10%

Mobile site average visits up

50%, some 1000%

What is Plain Language?

● Users understand on FIRST read or hear

● Quickly find what they need

● Understand what they find, and

● Use what they find to meet their needs.

Foundations of Plain Language

● Reader-centered organization* (needs testing)

● Design features like headers, tables, and bullets

● Short sentences and paragraphs

● “You,” “we,” and other pronouns

● Active voice, not passive

● Verbs, not nouns

● Consistent terms, not jargon or acronyms

● Common, everyday words

What is User Experience

The overall experience of a person using a

product (often a website or mobile app),

especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is

to use.

Goal: Explore user behavior

● Can people get to the

important content?

● Do they understand

how your site works?

● Can they contact you

(if needed?)

● Does your search work

as expected?

● Do your terms make

sense?

User Centered Design (3 phases)

1. Research 2. Design 3. Test

Thanks

Steve!

Things that INCREASE goodwill

● Know what people do on your site...

● … And make them obvious and easy

● Tell me what I want to know

● Save me steps whenever you can

● Put effort into making your site easy

● Know what questions I’m likely to have,

and answer them

Things that DECREASE goodwill

● Hiding information that I want

● Punishing for not doing things your way

● Asking me for info you don’t really need

● Having me wade through marketing

● Amateurish design

2. About us / What

we do

About Jon

● BA English

● MS Journalism

● Certified Usability Analyst

(Human Factors International)

● GSA for 6 years

● I love: Building UX teams,

comics, gardening

About Katherine

● BA, MA English

● GSA for 5 years

● Co-chair, trainer for Plain

Language Action and

Information Network

● I love: editing to reveal the

real message and deleting

redundant content

3. Top problems

we see

Top problems

Top problems

1. Confusing navigation

2. Difficulty with top tasks

3. Too much stuff

4. Jargon + acronyms

5. Unclear audience / Site’s

purpose unclear

Top problems

Top problems Solutions

1. Confusing navigation Clear labels. Remove clutter. Put

in order of use.

2. Difficulty with top tasks Put important info at top. Remove

clutter. Prioritize around metrics.

3. Too much stuff Cut text by 50%. Remove useless

images. Cut outdated content.

4. Jargon + acronyms Use common words. Put tech

words in ( )

5. Unclear audience / Site’s

purpose unclear

Taglines. Use words they value.

Remove clutter.

4. What you can

do

Things you can do

● Talk to users

● Determine top tasks

● Edit

● Train

● Test

● Look at metrics

● Advocate for your audience

5. Examples

Before/After Examples

Consent form: Before

It is understood and agreed that the

attending physician or his associates or

assistants shall be responsible for the

performance of their own individual

professional acts, and that the blood typing

and the selection of compatible blood are

the responsibilities of those who actually

perform the necessary laboratory tests.

Before/after examples

Consent form: After

I understand that in non-emergency

situations the lab technicians who perform

the blood tests are responsible for

determining my blood type. The attending

doctor, his associates, or assistants are not

responsible for these actions, but only for

their own actions toward my care.

Before/After Examples

Consent forms: Results

Participants who read the revised form

answered an average of 4.52 questions

correctly; those who read the original (before)

averaged only 2.36 correct answers.

Participants using the revised form were also

faster, averaging 1.64 minutes to answer

compared with 2.64 minutes.

Reading level

Medical information pamphlets often are written using

language that requires a reading level higher than parents

of many pediatric patients have achieved. Anecdotal

reports suggest that many parents may not readily

understand the federally mandated Public Health Service

vaccine information pamphlets prepared by the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1991.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/97/6/804.abstr

act

Reading level

We compared the parent reading time and comprehension

of a simplified pamphlet (Louisiana State University, LSU)

comprising 4 pages, 322 words, 7 instructional graphics,

and a text requiring a 6th grade reading ability with the

equivalent 1991 CDC vaccine information pamphlet

comprising 16 pages, 18,117 words, no graphics, and a

text requiring a 10th grade reading level. We measured the

reading ability of 522 parents of pediatric patients from

northwest Louisiana seen at public clinics (81%) and in a

private office (19%).

Reading level

A short, simply written pamphlet with instructional graphics

was preferred by high- and low-income parents seen in

private and public clinics. The sixth grade reading level

appears to be too high for many parents in public clinics;

new materials aimed at third to fourth grade levels may be

required. The new 1994 CDC immunization materials,

written at the eighth grade level, may still be inappropriately

high. The American medical community should adopt

available techniques for the development of more effective

patient-parent education materials.

6. Resources

www.digitalgov.gov/events

govux@gsa.gov

7. Contact us

We’d love to hear from you!

Katherine Spivey

Katherine.Spivey@GSA.gov

@katherinespivey

Jonathan Rubin

jdr613@gmail.com (personal)

@jonathan_rubin